Goblin Market
by Niu Shiy-Ue
Summary: I originally wrote this as a MikixJuri. Now it's RukaxJuri. Perhaps it would be better off MikagexJuri? Anyway there's a better summary inside.


'Goblin Market'

Woo-hoo, something not Gundam Wing!

This is based on Christina Rossetti's poem "Goblin Market"(1862) and all the quotations are from said poem.  The original was quite erotic, this is less so, but well.  I'd give it an R, just for the implications.

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By the village of Ohtori there was a small glen, where fae merchants would come and sell their wares.  Closest to the village were the fruit sellers, sirens with voices sweet as their produce, enticing buyers to take a closer, fatal look.  You could here their chant all the way to the stone gates on the other side of the valley.

"Come buy our orchard fruits,

Come buy, come buy;

Apples and quinces,

Lemons and oranges,

Plump unpeck'd cherries,

Melons and raspberries,

Bloom-down-cheek'd peaches

Swart-headed mulberries

Wild free-born cranberries,

Crab-apples, blackberries,

Apricots, strawberries;--

All ripe together

In summer weather,--

Morns that pass by,

Fair eves that fly; 

Come buy, come buy:

Our grapes fresh from the vine,

Pomegranates full and fine,

Dates and sharp bullaces,

Rare pears and greengages,

Damsons and bilberries,

Taste them and try:

Currants and gooseberries,

Figs to fill your mouth,

Citrons from the South,

Sweet to tongue and sound to eye

Come buy, come buy"

"C'mon Juri, I want to get a closer look!"  Shiori tugged on her friend's hand, trying to get closer to the stalls of the fruit sellers."Hush Shiori, don't look, who knows what magic the goblins have put on their wares."  The taller girl put her arms around the smaller, darker figure.  "Come away, before you get into trouble."

Shiori poked her dark head above the bushes they were hiding in.  "Just to see them!  Look at those grapes!  How warm the air must be where they grow!"

"No, no, no, no, no!"  Finally Juri turned away, covered her ears, closed her eyes and ran back to the village.  But Shiori lagged behind, staring at the vendors.  One was tall and pale with long, bright red hair and a cat's smirking face.  Another, dark, green-eyed, with silver-purple hair pulled back in a tail.  Two more looked like children, fair and dark like Juri and herself, both tramping away at a snail's pace.  Another like the first, except with curling green hair and an air of savage danger stalked the edge.  Yet still a sixth, shaped like a woman, dark as night and bespectacled.  The last was about as tall as Juri, with evening blue hair and sapphire eyes.

Shiori's spirit stretched out to them.  Oh how she burned with desire, not just for their wares, but for the fae themselves, as lovely as lilies in moonlit lakes!  What she would not give to be a part of that company!

Suddenly they turned towards where Shiori was hidden in the moss.  They began to signal to each other.  Finally, the red-haired one, tall and elegant, lifted a heavy golden plate and offered it to her.  "Care for a taste?" leered the dark man with silvery hair.  She almost swore she heard the red-haired man purr, an enticing noise that sent shivers down her spine.  The two small ones gamboled around her and the dark woman, with a voice as soft and sweet as honey bid her welcome to sit with them.  The one with blue hair took her hand and brushed a kiss across the back.  "You will never taste" he said.  "Anything more fresh or succulent than Touga's fruit."

Oh how Shiori wanted to accept their kind offer.  She was especially entranced by the flirtatious one who had kissed her hand.  "I have no money." she demurred.

"No matter" answered the dark woman.  She reached out a delicate hand and stroked Shiori's maroon hair.  "As soft and fine as silk.  One curl will be enough."

So Shiori cut one lock of wine-dark hair from her head and shed a crystal tear as payment, then fell to.  Honeyed globes, fair or red, stronger than wine, more refreshing than the iciest fall of water.  Was this what the fairy-folk fed on?  She could never get enough!  Finally even the rinds were dry and she got up from the feast.  Collecting a few stones for her own use she wandered home to the house she shared with Juri, so bewildered that she could not tell the hour or the day, the month or the year.

Juri scolded her when she arrived.  "What were you doing out at this time of the night?  Don't you know better?  Especially not so close to the goblin glen.  Don't you remember Kanae?  She met them in the moonlight, garlanded herself with their flowers, ate their ensorcelled gifts, then pined away to death?  Sought them over and over, at noon and night, at dawn and dusk, at morn and eve?  Dwindling until she fell with the first snow?  No grass grows upon her grave, even now.  Those lilies I planted-not a single bloom.  Never, ever dally with the fae."

"Oh, hush."  responded Shiori.  "You're just jealous that they invited me to eat with them.  But tomorrow I'll go back and bring you some plums.

'Cherries worth getting;

You cannot think what figs

My teeth have met in,

What melons icy-cold

Piled on a dish of gold

Too huge for me to hold

What peaches with a velvet nap,

Pellucid grapes without one seed

Odorous indeed must be the mead

Wheron they grow, and pure the wave they drink

With lilies at the brink,

And sugar-sweet their sap."

In bed that night they were like a stained glass window.  Soft rose-gold curls falling over short wine-dark waves.  Light over shadow, sun over mountains, two young women in the prime of youth.  Their breaths were melodious counterpoint to each other, their bodies intertwined, a marvelous picture.

They got up as soon as dawn broke.  Juri was outdoors, braving bees for honey, milking Nanami, their cow, churning butter and feeding their livestock.  Shiori was indoors, cleaning the house, baking, whipping cream and mending their clothes.  The house was unusually silent, for while Juri was as reserved as tomb, Shiori usually went about her work with a constant stream of gossip and conversation, even if no one was there to hear it.  Today though, instead of daydreaming of rich suitors and princely husbands to sweep her away from this hovel, she thought of sapphire eyes and midnight hair, an elegant voice and a moonlit silhouette.

Finally it was dusk and the two friends went down to the river to fetch water.  Juri was cool and calm as a glacier, and Shiori as animate as a wildfire.  Having filled her pitcher and chosen some irises to decorate the house with, she turned to Shiori and said, "Time to go.  Come now Shiori, no one else is left.  We don't want to be eaten by wolves." she added teasingly.  Shiori shook her head.

"The night's still early, Juri."  She looked around, hoping to catch a glimpse of the fae again.  "Besides, we should enjoy the lovely warm weather."  She lingered longer, but nary a single sprite or imp did she see.

"Late enough.  I already hear the fruit vendors hawking their wares."  Juri snapped.  She paused, noticing Shiori's stricken face.

Shiori almost fainted.  "You-you do?"

"Of course, they're right there."  Shiori looked and looked where Juri pointed, but couldn't see a thing.  Had she gone blind and deaf in a single day?  How could she buy, if she could not even see the sellers?  Was she destined to go without from now on?  Even worse, to never dally again with the handsome elf who charmed her and stole her heart.  With sullen steps she followed Juri back to their cottage, tears intermingling with the water she had drawn.  When they shared the bed that night, she waited till Juri's breathing had deepened in sleep, then went out to search again.  She came back just before dawn, as empty-handed as when she had went.

Day after day, night after night, she went back to the glen.  But never, not once did she ever see her blue-haired knight or any other of his kind, nor heard a single voice call out to her.  She burned with longing, it devoured her flesh and drained her of color.  She tried planting the few seeds she had kept from her original feast, but nothing sprouted, though she planted it in the sunniest spot in the garden (uprooting Juri's lilies in the process) and watered them with her own tears, they might have well been stones for all the shoot put forth.

Shiori stopped eating and was no longer capable of doing any work in the house.  Juri took over her duties of baking (which lead to a few very interesting days in the kitchen before she got the hang of using the stove), cleaning, sewing, making cream and butter.  Juri was at her wit's end.  Every night, coming home from the stream she heard the goblins cry; "Come buy our orchard fruits, come buy, come buy"  She considered buying fruits for Shiori, but was afraid that the price of such would be too high.  Her thoughts went in circles, from Shiori's fading face, to Kanae and her barren grave.

Finally Juri couldn't take it anymore.  Nothing she or any of the doctors she had spent their carefully saved money on could do anything for Shiori but just watch her fade away.  She was on her deathbed and Juri finally gave in to the last resort.  She took their last silver penny, kissed the almost catatonic Shiori, and went down to the glen.

All the fruit vendors fell silent when she arrived.  "I remember you" said the silver-haired man.  Up close she saw they differed in more than glowing eyes and shining hair.  This one's green eyes had slit-pupils, like a demon.  "You were here that evening, with the girl with maroon hair."

"Yes" agreed the dark woman.  She was the most human looking of all of them, but she acted as if she was completely apart from Juri's world.  "Such an odd couple; the two of you couldn't be more different."

"Why are you here?" asked the green-haired man.  This one had fangs and claws that clutched a sword.

"To buy our fruit of course!" shouted the redhead with a cat's face.

"Look at our apples

Russet and dun,

Bob at our cherries,

Bite at our peaches,

Citrons and dates,

Grapes for the asking,

Pears red with basking

Out in the sun,

Plums on their twigs;

Pluck them and suck them,

Pomegranates, figs."

She tossed them the silver penny.  "As much and as many as I can buy."

"Sit with us, pretty one." said the blue-haired one.  He had one lock of noon-blue hair amidst darker evening toned ones and pointed ears.  "What's your name?"

"Yes, do tell us your name." said the elegant, silver-haired one.  "Mine is Akio.  And why are you in such hurry to go?  

"The night is young, the air is warm and the stars are beautiful, though not" Blue-hair winked at her.  "Not as beautiful as you.  Besides, our fruit would lose half its wonder, half its flavor in the time it takes for you to get home."

"The man with blue hair is Ruka and the one with green hair is Saionji.  I'm Anthy, Akio's sister" the dark woman adjusted her spectacles.  "Stay and talk with us for a while."

"Stay."  The redhead leaned over his bales of fruit and leered at her.  "The name's Touga and I would love to get to know you better."

"Thank you" said Juri.  "But I'm nursing someone who's sick right now.  So if you won't allow me to take any home with me, then give me back my silver penny."

"Sick?" asked Ruka.  "Sick of what?"

"It's not important.  She'll be well soon."

"But if you're so concerned with her . . ."

"Bah!"  Saonji exploded.  "We have no time for this.  Be off with you!"  He swaggered away.

"No really I want to know."  said Ruka.  "Perhaps I could help."

"No really, I must be going."

"Ah, it's Touga's fruit isn't it."  Juri remained still and staring.  Ruka leaned forward and cornered her against a support pole of Anthy's tent.  "I'll give you the antidote, if you give me something in return."

"I only have my penny."

"Tell me your name."

" . . . "

"That's all."

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a shining vial.  Juri hesitated but what had she to loose?  Shiori was already dying.  If her life must be forfeit in return, so be it.  "Juri.  Arisugawa Juri."

"A beautiful name for a beautiful woman.  Take what's in this and pour it in a glass of water.  Have her drink it and by tomorrow she should be free of her cravings."

She ran home.  When she got there, Shiori was so still she thought she was dead.  She leaned her head on Shiori's breast and breathed a sigh of release at the faint, but still beating heart.  "Not too late." she whispered to herself.  She quickly mixed the potion and slowly got Shiori to swallow it.  

Life suddenly flowed through her limbs.  Her lips and cheeks regained their roses, her hair darkened, her eyes glowed.  "Oh Juri, it tastes-it tastes".  Nectar on her tongue, her lips tingled with the taste.  The fires of life spread through her and she drank from the glass as if it was the most refreshing thing in the world.  She spun and laughed and hugged Juri.  The two went to sleep relieved that their trial was over.

In the morning Shiori was dead.

Juri ran back to the fairy glen in tears.  "You lied!" she screamed at Ruka.  Tears ran down her face, her dress was torn, her hair tangled and her eyes red.  "I did not lie." he calmly responded.

"You said the elixir would cure her!"

"I said that she would be free of her cravings."

"But she's dead!"

"I never promised that she'd live through it."  Juri collapsed.  She tucked her face into her knees and sobbed.  "Why?  I loved her, I loved her so much.  How can I live without her?"

"Really" said Ruka.  "Why?  The girl was beneath you.  She scorned you and used you and yet still you hung on her every move.  You're better off now that she's dead."  Juri shook her head and curled in tighter.  Suddenly she felt hands on her limbs, slowly uncurling her from her position.  "You're so beautiful" whispered Ruka from beside her.  He ran a damp cloth over her face, washing away the remnants of her angry tears.

"Lovely" agreed Akio.

"Just forget about her"  Anthy's voice was almost soothing.  "Join us.  We can show you such marvels."  White and golden, they began to unwind her limbs.  She struggled against them.  Their looks were admiring, and their hands gentle but she'd didn't want this!  They whispered words of encouragement, but she tried to stop her ears.  She felt her gown being removed by Ruka and Anthy slide soft silks and velvets over her to replace it.  Her hair, pulled into tight curls, was softly brushed out by Touga.  She kicked out, the changelings pinned her feet.  She thrashed her arms only to have Saonji and Akio catch and hold them.  She tossed her head, and it was embraced by Ruka.  She made her body like stone; they touched and caressed her without shame.  When one would end, another took that one's place.

Finally Ruka caught and held her head still.  Anthy held a cup to his lips, and then pressed it to Juri's mouth.  She held her lips sealed, but then Ruka bent down and kissed her harshly, forcing her lips apart and slipping something into her mouth with his tongue.  The last thing she remembered was Ruka cradling her in his arms, whispering that everything was going to be alright. 

Near the village of Ohtori is a small glen, where fae merchants come to hawk their ware to the humans.  Many strange and wondrous things can be seen at this bazaar, but to the most beautiful and remarkable are the merchants themselves.  Closest to the village you will find a certain group, most beautiful among all the fairy vendors.  A silver-haired man with green eyes and dark, bespectacled woman spreading out fine silks and carpets, woven unlike anything humans could ever produce.  Two gamboling changelings, dark and light, day and night.  A green haired half-beast guard stalking about, hand always at the ready on his sword.  A flame headed demon leering over bales of perfect fruit with a cat's smug face.  Finally, the last couple, a blue haired elf selling elixirs rare in crystal decanters, with a voice as smooth and sweet as the night kissing a young woman, with curling rose-gold hair and aquamarine eyes and angels wings, surrounded by flowers with the scents of amaranth and heaven itself.

Perhaps you can hear their cries even now.

"Come buy our orchard fruits,

Come buy, come buy;

Apples and quinces,

Lemons and oranges,

Plump unpeck'd cherries,

Melons and raspberries,

Bloom-down-cheek'd peaches

Swart-headed mulberries

Wild free-born cranberries,

Crab-apples, blackberries,

Apricots, strawberries;--

All ripe together

In summer weather,--

Morns that pass by,

Fair eves that fly; 

Come buy, come buy:

Our grapes fresh from the vine,

Pomegranates full and fine,

Dates and sharp bullaces,

Rare pears and greengages,

Damsons and bilberries,

Taste them and try:

Currants and gooseberries,

Figs to fill your mouth,

Citrons from the South,

Sweet to tongue and sound to eye

Come buy, come buy" 

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End file.
